Devices and methods for displaying, for example, geographic or cartographic illustrations—in which the graphic illustrations comprise text objects—are frequently used, for example, in navigation systems. In the typical application in navigation systems, it is generally required to process geographic illustrations and, in particular, map illustrations in such a way that they can be illustrated on a display device of the navigation system, for example, on a monitor.
In addition to the display of geographic illustrations and map illustrations, it is usually also required to display text objects on the monitor of navigation systems.
Text objects of this type generally serve for the textual identification of certain geographic characteristics that are currently illustrated on the display device of the navigation system and for identifying map characteristics such as, for example, cities, roads, landmarks, landscape characteristics, etc.
However, most conventional navigation systems feature comparatively small display devices or monitors, on which a multitude of graphic information, as well as additional text information, needs to be frequently illustrated. In order to improve the orientation of the user of a navigation system, for example, roads, cities and other geographic or landscape characteristics are usually provided with a textual identification that needs to be accommodated on the available monitor surface—in addition to the graphic illustration of the corresponding characteristics.
In the pertinent state of the art, one frequently encounters the problem that the space or text illustration area available on the monitor of the navigation system is in many cases insufficient for displaying the text information provided or required for correspondingly informing the user on the monitor with the desired detail and in a legible font size.
This means that the solutions according to the state of the art frequently represent a compromise, in which only part of the required or desired text information can actually be displayed on the monitor. In alternative navigation systems known from the state of the art, for example, text information is either only illustrated in abbreviated form, in which case the legibility and the intuitive comprehension of the information deteriorate, or a very small font size is the chosen which frequently also results in an insufficient perceptibility. Under certain circumstances, this may even lead to a safety problem, namely if the user of a navigation system needs to devote an excessive amount of concentration to reading text that is illegible or difficult to comprehend, for example, reading road names on the monitor of the navigation system.